Systems and methods for name pronunciation

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided for associating a phonetic pronunciation with a name by receiving the name, mapping the name to a plurality of monosyllabic components that are combinable to construct the phonetic pronunciation of the name, receiving a user input to select one or more of the plurality, and combining the selected one or more of the plurality of monosyllabic components to construct the phonetic pronunciation of the name.

FIELD

This application relates to recognizing and synthesizing speech and, more particularly, to recognizing and synthesizing pronunciations of names.

BACKGROUND

Name recognition is a particularly difficult aspect of speech recognition. Names can include names of people, businesses, and other entities. The distribution of names has a long tail. Furthermore, the way names are pronounced can be subjective and dependent on the name's origin. There can be a few names that are very common, but an order of magnitude more names that are very rare. For a speech recognition system to recognize names, a linguist is typically needed to transcribe all possible pronunciations in a phonetic alphabet supported by the locale or language in which the speech recognition system is deployed. Most existing speech recognition and synthesis system have up to hundreds or thousands of names, while there are likely millions of actual unique names in use today.

Current speech recognition systems typically model name recognition to support tasks such as phone dialing, search and query, reminders, and events scheduling based on a named entry in a contact application of a user device. To recognize or synthesize a name, current systems often use a dictionary or a lexicon. These contain a mapping of the names to their possible pronunciations. However, if a name has not been modeled in the speech lexicon, the system must guess the pronunciation. For the purpose of speech synthesis, the system may also need to guess the stress on individual syllables comprised in the name.

For names not modeled explicitly in the lexicon, speech recognition systems typically depend on a pronunciation guesser that uses sophisticated letter-to-sound rules. However, because certain phonetic units are particular to a specific language, the same name may be pronounced differently by different users. Thus, existing systems are not capable of building an adequate pronunciation guesser that models the pronunciation of names from different languages and cultures. In many cases, a foreign name pronunciation may not be guessed properly unless explicit rules are represented within the guesser.

SUMMARY

The application, in various implementations, provides systems, methods and devices that provide a user interface to efficiently and conveniently configure the phonetic pronunciation of names.

In one aspect a system generates a phonetic pronunciation of a name based on user selection of the name's monosyllabic components. The system may associate a phonetic pronunciation with a name. The system may include a user interface arranged to receive the name. The system may also include a processor arranged to map the name to a plurality of monosyllabic components that are combinable to construct the phonetic pronunciation of the name. The user interface may also be arranged to receive a user input to select one or more of the plurality of monosyllabic components. Furthermore, the processor may be arranged to combine the selected one or more of the plurality of monosyllabic components to construct the phonetic pronunciation of the name.

In one configuration, the user interface is arranged to provide the phonetic pronunciation to the user. The user interface may be arranged to receive a second user input to select or reject the phonetic pronunciation. The user interface may also be arranged to display a first portion of the plurality of monosyllabic components to the user. The user interface may further be arranged to display a second portion of the monosyllabic components in response to a user selection of one of the first portion of the plurality of monosyllabic components.

The processor may be arranged to receive the name from a contact list of a contact application and/or other application associated with the user. The name may be in text format. The processor may be arranged to query a data store and/or database that includes one or more of the monosyllabic components associated with the name. The monosyllabic components may include components associated with one or more languages, cultures, and/or locales. The construction of the phonetic pronunciation of the name may include generating an audio file.

In another aspect, a system for determining usage information associated with the phonetic pronunciation of a name may include a server arranged to receive one or more contact names. The system may include a data store arranged to store one or more phonetic pronunciations associated with the one or more names. The server may be arranged to receive an indication of the one or more phonetic pronunciations associated with the one or more names from one or more user devices and determine usage data associated with the one or more phonetic pronunciations associated with the one or more names.

The indication may include the one or more phonetic pronunciations. The indication may include a selection of the one or more phonetic pronunciations from the one or more user devices. The usage data may include an amount of instances that the indication is received during a period of time. The server may be arranged to provide at least one of the phonetic pronunciations associated with the name to a first user device based on the usage data.

In another aspect, a system may include and/or be provided with a plurality of pronunciation guessers where each of the pronunciation guessers are associated with a particular phonetic alphabet of a language or locale. For example, the phonetic alphabets may be, without limitation, English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. A processor determines a language or locale associated with a user and associates a first phonetic alphabet (e.g., English) with the language or locale associated with the user. The determination of language and/or locale may be via manufacturer input, service provider input, user input, detection of the geographic area associated with the location of the system, analysis of the types of names and/or other words input by a user, and the like.

Each of the pronunciation guessers may receive a representation of the name. The representation may be orthographic. Orthography may generally refer to the spelling of a word. The orthographic representation may define phonemes and/or symbols (e.g., graphemes and/or dialect) of a language associated with the representation of a word and/or name. Each of the plurality of pronunciation guessers may then guess a phonetic pronunciation of one or more components of the name. Then, a phonetic mapper may map the phonetic pronunciation of the one or more components of the name guessed by each of the plurality of pronunciation guessers to the first phonetic alphabet to generate a list of guessed pronunciations. A speech recognizer may receive an audio pronunciation of the name and then select a combination of components from the list of guessed pronunciations that, when pronounced, substantially and/or best match the audio pronunciation of the name.

Each of the one or more components of the name may include at least one of a sound unit, a phoneme, a mono-syllabic component, a mono-syllabic component with a particular type of stress, and portion of a word. The processor 102 may identify the language or locale associated with the user. The number of pronunciation guessers may be determined based on the language or locale associated with the user. The type of each of the plurality of pronunciation guessers may be determined based on the language or locale associated with the user. The type of pronunciation guesser may include the type of language or locale associated with the pronunciation guesser.

Various advantages and applications for using a name pronunciation system and interface in accordance with principles of the present disclosure are discussed in more detail below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other features of the present application, its nature and various advantages will become more apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer to like parts throughout, and in which.

FIG. 1 is a diagram including components of a user-driven name pronunciation system;

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a computer processing environment including various functions, applications and/or routines running within a user-driven pronunciation system;

FIG. 3 is a diagram of a network including a user-driven name pronunciation system;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of a process for generating a pronunciation of a name from a contact list or user input;

FIG. 5 is a display of a name including its monosyllabic components;

FIG. 6 is a display of another name including its monosyllabic components;

FIG. 7 is a display of yet another name including its monosyllabic components;

FIG. 8 is a diagram of a system for determining phonetic pronunciations of a name.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of a process for generating a phonetic pronunciation of a name

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of another process for generating a phonetic pronunciation of a name based on user selection of the name's monosyllabic components; and

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of a process for determining usage information associated with the phonetic pronunciation of a name.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE

The application, in various implementations, provides systems, methods and devices that provide a user interface to efficiently and conveniently configure the phonetic pronunciation of names. In certain configurations, the interface uses a processor that implements an application for mapping an arbitrary name from a user's contact to a plurality of monosyllabic names to construct the correct pronunciation of the name. The name may first be syllabified into multiple mono-syllabic words that are easily pronounced by a user in a language of transcribed intent. A syllable may be considered a single element of spoken language that includes a single uninterrupted sound formed by a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant. The sound may be preceded by, followed, or surrounded by a single consonant or multiple consonants.

In certain configurations, an interface allows a user to enter their own mono-syllabic words to accurately present the pronunciation of a name. The interface may present a sequence of mono-syllabic words to a user and enable the user to select various mono-syllabic words to form an overall pronunciation of a name. In certain implementations, the interface provides the user with audio associated with the selected pronunciation as feedback to enable the user to refine the pronunciation.

The interface may allow a user to select one or more mono-syllabic words, and/or select a particular sequence of mono-syllabic words, that best approximate the underlying pronunciation of a name in the user's list of contacts. The interface may include a touch screen to enable efficient user selection of one or more of the mono-syllabic words. The interface may provide a best guess of the pronunciation to a user. In one implementation, a refined pronunciation is transcribed into a phonetic alphabet supported by a speech recognition function and incorporated as a part of a lexicon of the user's dynamic vocabulary.

The lexicon may be used as part of a process for crowd-sourcing pronunciations based on inputs from multiple users. By gathering pronunciation data from multiple users related to, for example, the types of mono-syllabic words used and how often certain mono-syllabic words are used, the potentially significant cost of employing linguists can be reduced or eliminated, while creating a more extensive and relevant lexicon of phonetic names. The name pronunciation system also allows a user to utilize more accurately pronounced names for recognition and synthesis for everyday tasks as opposed to relying on substandard pronunciation guessers.

FIG. 1 is a diagram including components of a user-driven name pronunciation system 100. The system 100 includes a user interface 102, a processor 104, and a data store 106. The user interface 102 may include hardware, software, or a combination therefore arranged to provide an interface for one or more users to communicate with the system 100. The processor 104 may include one more processors arranged to process data, functions, and/or applications of the system 100. The data store 106 may include one more storage devices.

In certain implementations, the user interface 102 allows a user to interact with the system 100. For example, the user interface 102 may include a user input device that can take a variety of forms, such as a button, keypad, dial, a click wheel, microphone, and/or a touch screen. The user interface 102 may include an output device that can take a variety of forms such as, without limitation, a display, a speaker, a transducer, headphones, and/or a vibration generator. In certain implementations, the user interface 102 is arranged to receive spoken inputs and/or commands from a user. The user interface 102 may output audio information via one or more speakers and/or headphones to a user.

In certain implementations, the processor 104 includes one or more processors arranged within a user device. In other implementations, the processor 104 may include multiple processors among multiple devices. Further details regarding such an implementation are discussed with respect to FIG. 3 later herein. Processor 104 may control the operation of various functions such as described later herein with respect to FIG. 2, and other circuitry included in system 100. Processor 104 may drive a display of user interface 102 and may receive user inputs from the user interface 102. Processor 104 may receive, retrieve, and/or send data including, for example, executable code to and/or from data store 106 during operations of the system 100. The processor 104 may include a Coder/decoder (CODEC) processor to convert digital audio signals into analog signals for driving a speaker of user interface 102 to produce sound including the pronunciation of names, voice, music, and other like audio. The CODEC may also convert audio inputs from a microphone of the user interface 102 into digital audio signals. The processor may store digital audio signals as data files in the data store 106. The CODEC may include a video CODEC for processing digital and/or analog video signals. In some configurations, the processor 104 includes one or more central processing units (CPUs) operating in one or more user devices, personal computers, and/or servers.

In certain implementations, the data store 106 may store media (e.g., music and video files), contact information (e.g., contact names), phonetic data associated with contact names (e.g., monosyllabic words), software (e.g., for implanting functions of the system 100, preference information (e.g., media playback preferences), transaction information (e.g., information such as credit card information), connection information (e.g., information that may enable a component of system 100 to establish communications with another system), subscription information (e.g., information that keeps tracks of podcasts or television shows or other media a user subscribes to), and any other suitable data. Data store 106 may include one more storage mediums, including without limitation, a hard-drive, permanent memory such as ROM, semi-permanent memory such as RAM, solid state memory, removable memory, CD-ROM, CD-RW, diskette, firmware, a cache, and other like devices capable of storing electronic data. Data store 106 may include a database. The database may include a relational database management system (RDBMS) and/or a structured query language (SQL) database, or the like.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a computer processing environment 200 including various functions, applications, and/or routines 202-210 running within a user-driven pronunciation system such as, for example, system 100 of FIG. 1. The computer processing environment 200 may include a pronunciation guesser 202, a speech recognizer 204, a speech synthesizer 206, a contact application 208, and other applications 210.

In certain implementations, the pronunciation guesser 202 models rules for pronouncing words such as names from their associated text spellings. The pronunciation guesser may include learning algorithms and/or techniques such as, without limitation, hidden-markov models, decision tree classifiers, and/or other statistical models where phonemes or sequences of phonemes may be associated with letters, sequences of letters, and/or words to produce pronunciations of names. The pronunciation guesser may utilize data and/or libraries associated with one or more languages to predict a pronunciation including data from a database within, for example, data store 106 and/or 312.

In certain implementations, the speech recognizer 204 converts spoken words by a user to electronic text and/or data. The speech recognizer 204 may be configured to recognize speech from a particular user and/or to recognize speech generally from any user. The speech recognizer 204 may be utilized in conjunction with other applications 210 such as, for example, a voice activated dialing application for initiating a telephone call (e.g., “Call Bill”). The other applications 210 may include device control (e.g., “hang up”), search (e.g., “find love songs”), data entry (e.g., “10 Main Street”), speech-to-text processing (e.g., inputting content of an email), and any like application utilizing spoken user inputs. The speech recognizer 204 may utilize anyone of a number of models including, without limitation, hidden markov models (HMMs), dynamic time warping (DTW) based speech recognition, and/or statistical speech recognition models. The speech recognizer 204 may use context dependencies for phonemes, vocal tract length normalization (VTLN), maximum likelihood regression (MLLR), heteroscedastic linear discriminant analysis (HLDA), Bayesian networks, Viterbi algorithms, and/or like techniques for speech recognition.

In certain implementations, the speech synthesizer 206 electronically produces human speech. The speech synthesizer 206 may be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination thereof. In one configuration, the synthesizer 206 converts electronic data, electronic text, and/or symbolic linguistic representations such as phonetic transcriptions into speech. The synthesizer 206 may generate spoken words such as names by concatenating portions of recorded sounds from a database such as within data store 106 and/or 312. The speech synthesizer 206 may access phones, diphones, words, mono-syllabic components of words, and/or sentences to produce synthesized audio outputs and/or audio files. The synthesizer 206 may utilize any one or more techniques to produce natural and intelligible sounds. The techniques may include, without limitation, concatenative synthesis, unit selection synthesis, diphone synthesis, mono-syllabic component synthesis, domain-specific synthesis, format synthesis, articulatory synthesis, hidden markov model (HMM) synthesis, and/or sinewave synthesis. The synthesizer 206 may be utilized with one or more applications such as contact application 208 and other applications 210. Sirie is a type of application that uses name recognition that is made available by Apple Inc., of Cupertino, Calif. For example, a user may speak “Find emails from Steve” or “Call Peter at home.”

In certain implementations, the contact application 208 includes one or more contacts associated with a user that may be stored in a list and/or database. Each contact may include a contact name, address, telephone number, electronic mail (email) address, and/or other information. Each contact may include a “Phonetic First Name” and/or “Phonetic Last Name” field. The contact application 208 may be a stand-alone application that interfaces with other applications 210. For example, another application 210 may include a wireless telephone calling application. The contact application 210 may interface with the calling application to initiate a telephone to a selected contact from the contact application 208. The contact application 208 may be integrated with other applications 210. For example, the other application 210 may include an email application that enables to user to send and receive emails and/or access a mail server. The contact application 208 may be a function of the mail application that enables a user to store one or more contacts with associated information such as contact name, address, telephone number, electronic mail (email) address, and/or other information. The contact application and/or email application may include the contact and/or mail applications implemented, for example, on the Apple® iPhone®, iPadO, and iPod Touch® that are made available by Apple Inc., of Cupertino, Calif.

FIG. 3 is a diagram of a network including a user-driven name pronunciation system 300. The system 300 includes user devices 302, 304, and/or 306, network 308, sever 310, and/or data store 312.

The user devices 302, 304, and/or 306 may include a personal computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), a portable computing device, a cellular telephone, satellite telephone, cordless telephone, pager, or any other electronic device capable of implementing one or more functions of environment 200 of FIG. 2. The user device 302, 304, and/or 306 may be integrated within the packaging of other devices or structures such a vehicle, video game system, appliance, clothing, helmet, glasses, wearable apparel, stereo system, entertainment system, or other portable devices. Types of user devices 302, 304, and/or 306 may include, for example, an Apple® iPod®, iPad®, iPhone, iMac®, MacBook Pro®, and MacBook Air®, and the like, that are made available by Apple Inc., of Cupertino, Calif. and any other devices capable of communicating in a wired and/or wireless manner.

User device 302, 304, and/or 306 may synchronize with, for example, a remote computing system or server 310 to receive media and/or user pronunciation related data (using either wireless or wireline communications paths). Media may include, without limitation, sound or audio files, music, video, multi-media, and digital data, in streaming and/or discrete (e.g., files and packets) formats.

A user device 302, 304, and/or 306 may include communications circuitry for wired and/or wireless communication (e.g., short-range and/or long range communication). For example, the wireless communication circuitry may be Wi-Fin” enabling circuitry that permits wireless communication according to one of the 802.11 standards. Other wireless network protocols standards could also be used, either in alternative to the identified protocols or in addition to the identified protocol. Other network standards may include Bluetooth, the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA), Long Term Evolution (LTE), and/or 4G based wireless protocols.

Any suitable circuitry, device, system, or combination of these (e.g., a wireless communications infrastructure including communications towers and telecommunications servers) operative to create a communications network may be used to create network 308. Network 308 may be capable of providing communications using any suitable communications protocol. In some embodiments, network 308, user devices 302, 304, and/or 206, and server 310 may support, for example, traditional telephone lines, cable television, Wi-Firm, Ethernet, Bluetooth™, high frequency systems (e.g., 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.6 GHz communication systems), infrared, transmission control protocol/internet protocol (“TCP/IP”) (e.g., any of the protocols used in each of the TCP/IP layers), hypertext transfer protocol (“HTTP”), BitTorrent™, file transfer protocol (“FTP”), real-time transport protocol (“RTP”), real-time streaming protocol (“RTSP”), secure shell protocol (“SSH”), any other communications protocol, or any combination thereof.

In certain implementations, server 314 includes one or more of a LINUX, UNIX, Windows®, or MAC OS operating system. Sever 314 may be implemented on one computer device or multiple computer devices. Data store 312 may include one or more disk drives, solid state memory, volatile and/or non-volatile memory, an array of storage disks, and/or a plurality of redundant storage elements. Sever 314 may include a virtual server distributed and/or copied among multiple hardware server elements.

In one implementation, a user device 302, 304, and/or 306 includes one or more of the components 102, 104, and 106 of FIG. 1 and one or more of functions 202, 204, 206, 208, and 210 of FIG. 2. For example, user device 302 may include a portable computing device operating as a stand alone user pronunciation system including the all of the components 102, 104, and 106 of FIG. 1 and the functions 202, 204, 206, 208, and 210 of FIG. 2. In one configuration, user device 302 accesses data store 312 periodically or at other instances to obtain user pronunciation related data including contact names, contact information (e.g., address, email address, telephone number, and the like), and mono-syllabic components associated with contact names. User device 302 may stored user pronunciation related data locally within data store 106 and/or remotely within data store 312.

In another implementation, a user device 302 and server 312 may operate cooperatively to implement one or more of the functions 202, 204, 206, 208, and 210 of FIG. 2. In one configuration, user device 302 operates as a client and/or terminal for server 310 that implements the functions of environment 200 of FIG. 2. In another configuration, user device 302 and server 310 both perform one or more functions of environment 200 of FIG. 2. In yet another configuration, user device 302 performs a portion of the functions 202, 204, 206, 208, and 210 of FIG. 2, while server 310 and/or data store 312 perform another portion of the functions 202, 204, 206, 208, and 210 of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of a process 400 for generating a phonetic pronunciation of a name from a contact list or user input. One or more of the steps of process 400 may be implemented by a user-driven name pronunciation system such as the systems 100 and 300 of FIGS. 1 and 3 using, for example, one or more of the functions 202, 204, 206, 208, and 210 of FIG. 2.

In one implementation, a user device, such as user device 302, includes a contact application 208 including one or more contact names. The user may access the contact application 208 to determine a phonetic pronunciation associated with the text of the stored contact name. The contact name may include a first name and/or last name. Certain devices such as the Apple® iPhone® provide phonetic first name and phonetic last name fields for a user to manually insert a phonetic spelling to determine how a contact name should be pronounced. Manually entry can be time consuming while not ensuring the correct pronunciation is eventually synthesized. Thus, it would be advantageous to leverage a user's familiarity with the names in their contacts and how the user intends to pronounce such names, to provide the user with a way to present and articulate name pronunciations efficiently and conveniently.

In certain implementations, a user can select a name via a user interface 102 in a contact application 208 or other application 210 to assign a proper phonetic pronunciation for the name. A pronunciation guesser 202 receives the name (Step 402). Alternatively or additionally, a user device such as user device 302 may include a user interface 102 for receiving spoken names and/or other words. The user interface 102 may include a microphone to receive a user provided name which is then provided to speech recognizer 204 to convert the spoken name to text. A user may say a name such as, for example, “Philippe” which is then converted to electronic data and/or text. The electronic data and/or text for “Philippe” may then be received by the pronunciation guesser 202 for further processing. A received name may be 1) either an entry in a contact, for example the “Firstname” and/or “Lastname” field for a contact application 208 in a user device 302 such as, for example, an iPhone®. The received name may be a recording of a name that is associated with a name entry in the contact application 208. For example, one could have an icon displayed and/or situated next to the name that allows a user to associate a pronunciation to the name.

The pronunciation guesser 202 then over-generates a set of possible phonetic pronunciations associated with the name (Step 404). For example, feature 414 of FIG. 4 shows multiple possible pronunciations of the term “Hafs.” In one configuration, pronunciation guesser 202 maps one or more mono-syllabic components to a name. Mapping may include generating, associating, and/or obtaining the one or more mono-syllabic components from a database included in, for example, data store 106 and/or 312. The database may include a relational database that stores one or more contact names and one or more mono-syllabic components and/or words associated with and/or mapped to each contact name. In certain configurations, the pronunciation guesser 202 may map and/or generate possible phonetic pronunciations based on one or more locales and/or languages. For example, the pronunciation guesser 202 may have access to a database in data store 106 and/or 312 that includes a lexicon of phonetic pronunciations in various languages such as English, German, French, and so on. The lexicon may include mono-syllabic components associated with a name in one or more languages. For example, with respect to FIG. 5, the name “Philippe” may have an English component 508 “fill” and a French component 506 “leap.”

Next, the generated list and/or set of possible phonetic pronunciations are provided to, for example, recognizer 204 which performs a recognition of the possible phonetic pronunciations and selects the closet available guess of a proper phonetic translation (Step 406). In one configuration, recognizer 204 uses constrained speech recognition. Constrained recognition may be employed based on limited resources such as limited processing power, the need for faster recognition, the availability of storage capacity, the size of the lexicon of phonetic pronunciations, and/or other system constraints. The recognizer 204 may consider factors such as location of the user in determining the closest available guess. For example, if the user and/or the user device 302 originate and/or reside substantially within a particular geographic area associated with a particular language or locale, the recognizer 204 may consider location when selecting the closet available guess. The recognizer 204 may also consider the user's selections of phonetic pronunciations for other names in determining a language and/or locale for selection of the closet available guess for the name.

In an alternative implementation, the generated list and/or set of possible phonetic pronunciations are provided to a user via user interface 102. In one configuration, the user interface 102 presents the list and/or set of phonetic pronunciations including a set of mono-syllabic components and/or words.

FIG. 5 is a display 500 of a name 502 (e.g., “Philippe”) including its mono-syllabic components 504, 506, 508, 510, 512, 514, 516, and 518. A syllable may be considered a single element of spoken language that includes a single uninterrupted sound formed by a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant. The sound may be preceded by, followed, or surrounded by a single consonant or multiple consonants. The name 502 may be a first name in a contact list of a contact application 208. The display 500 may be provided via a user interface 102 of, for example, a user device 302. The display 500 may include a touch screen capable of receiving a user input to select one or more mono-syllabic components. In this case, the name 502 “Philippe” can include the mono-syllabic components 504 “fee”, 506 “leap”, 508 “fill”, 510 “eap”, 512 “philly”, and 514 “pay.” A user may select mono-syllabic components 504 “fee” and 506 “leap” to construct a phonetic pronunciation for the name 502 “Philippe.”

Alternatively, the user may select the mono-syllabic components 508 “fill” and 506 “eap” to construct a different phonetic pronunciation for the name 502 “Philippe.” As a further option, the user may select mono-syllabic components 512 “philly” and 514 “pay” to construct another phonetic pronunciation for the name 502 “Philippe.” In some implementations, the display 500 includes mono-syllabic components 516 and 518 as user definable fields capable of receiving a user input to define a mono-syllabic component or word. There may be circumstances where the pronunciation guesser does not provide a mono-syllabic component that sufficiently pronounces a component of a name. In such circumstances, the user interface 102 via display 500 can receive a user inputted word via component 516 and/or 518 that provides a mono-syllabic pronunciation of a portion of a name. In some implementations, a user is able to select any combination of the components 502-518 to construct a phonetic pronunciation of o the name 502 “Philippe.”

As previously discussed, display 500 may receive mono-syllabic components associated with one or more languages or locales. By presenting monosyllabic components associated with one or more languages, the user interface 102 via display 500 efficiently provides a user with a variety of possible alternative pronunciations for a portion of a name. The one or more mono-syllabic components can be generated by pronunciation guesser 202 based on one or more lexicons and/or databases associated with one or more languages stored within data store 106 and/or 312.

In certain configurations, user interface 102 via display 500 displays mono-syllabic components and/or other words arranged in an order and/or sequence based on a predicted user preference. For example, in FIG. 5, the mono-syllabic component 504 “fee” is displayed above component 508 “fill” possibly based on a user preference for French pronunciations, based on a user locale, based on a language associated with a user, and/or based on previous types of selections of mono-syllabic components made by the user. In some configurations, user interface 102 via display 500 may present mono-syllabic components in a particular sequence and/or order based on the popularity and/or frequency of use of certain mono-syllabic components among a group of users over a period of time, and/or in a particular location.

In certain implementations, the display 500 may include one or more poly-syllabic words looked up from a dictionary in data store 106 and/or 312 that can be combined with mono-syllabic words to form a phonetic pronunciation. For example, the component 620 “money” and component 512 “Philly” may be considered poly-syllabic (i.e., bi-syllabic) words that may be present in a pre-existing dictionary that can be also be used. Thus, certain words that may not be considered legitimate mono-syllabic words in a dictionary, but that may be constructed from legitimate mono-syllabic words, can be included and presented to a user for construction of a phonetic pronunciation, wherein the user may be able to pronounce a mono-syllable reasonably based on similar context. For example, the word “Tim” may be a legitimate word in a dictionary, whereas the word “nim” may not be a legitimate word, but one can make a reasonable guess of how it is pronounced based on the fact that the consonant “t” has been replaced by the consonant “n”.

FIG. 6 is another example of a display 600 of another name 602 “Belyamani” including its mono-syllabic components 604-626. The user interface 102 via display 600 may display the name 602 “Belyamani” with some or all of its mono-syllabic components 604-626. The name 602 may be a last name in a contact list of a contact application 208. In one configuration, the user interface 102 receives user selections of one or more of the mono-syllabic components 604-626 associated with portions of the name 602 “Belyamani.” The mono-syllabic components 604-626 may be arranged based on characteristics of the user and/or characteristics of a group of users. The user interface 102 may include a touch screen capable of receiving user selections of one or more of the mono-syllabic components. The user interface 102 may include other devices capable of receiving user inputs such as, without limitation, a mouse, keypad, click wheel, microphone, and so one.

In one implementation, user interface 102 via display 600 may present a portion of the mono-syllabic components while not presenting another portion of mono-syllabic components unless or until the other portion becomes relevant for user selection. For example, display 600 may initially display only components 604 “bell”, 610 “bail”, 616 “bale”, and 622. Depending on which component a user selects, user interface 102 via display 600 may then display one or more of the other components 606, 608, 612, 614, 618, 620, 624, and 626. For example, if the user selects component 604 “bell,” then user interface may only show components 606 “ya”, 608 “mani”, and 630 “money” while not showing component 614 “any” because user interface 102 and/or pronunciation guesser 202 may not consider component 614 to be sufficiently relevant to component 604 “bell” and/or component 606 “ya.”

In some configurations, any one or more rows or columns of the components 604-626 may be displayed via display 600. For example, a first column including components 604, 610, 616, and 622 may be initially displayed. Once a user selects one of the components of the first column, a second column including components 606, 612, 618, and 624 may be displayed. The first column may be removed from display 600. Once a user selects a component of the second column, a third column including components 608, 614, 620, an d626 may be displayed while the components of second column may be removed from display 600. Additional columns of mono-syllabic components may be presented in a similar manner and so on.

User interface 102 may use a similar approach for the display of rows such as, for example, a row including components 604, 606, and 608. Other portions and/or groups of mono-syllabic components may be displayed dynamically based on the selection of one or more other mono-syllabic components. In some configurations, user interface 102 via display 600 provides one or more mono-syllabic entry fields 622, 624, and 626 to receive user inputted mono-syllabic components and/or words. In on implementation, the user interface 102 stores the user-inputted mono-syllabic components in a data store such as data store 106 and/or data store 312 for subsequent user by user interface 102 by the user and/or for subsequent use by other users associated with other user devices such as user devices 304 and 306.

FIG. 7 is a display 700 of yet another name 702 “Hafsteinsson” including its monosyllabic components 704-720. The user interface 102 via display 700 may provide features as discussed above with respect to displays 500 and 600. In some implementations, the user interface 102 via display 700 provides a list including one or more constructed phonetic pronunciations of a name to a user for selection. Instead of, for example, providing a set of user selectable mono-syllabic components 704, 706, and 708, the user interface 102 provides the construct phonetic pronunciation including the components 704, 706, and 708 as “yaf-stein-son.”

Likewise, the user interface 102 via display 700 provides other constructed phonetic pronunciations such as “Half-steen-sown” based on components 710, 712, and 714, and so on. Element 414 provides an illustration of a display of multiple pronunciations for the name “Hafs.” Thus, user interface 102 via displays 500, 600, or 700 may provide a list of ways in which a name can be pronounced including various combinations of mono-syllabic components. The user interface 102 via display 700 may provide one or more mono-syllabic entry fields 716, 718, and 720 to receive user inputted mono-syllabic components and/or words.

Returning to FIG. 4, once a name pronunciation selection and/or guess is completed in Step 406, whether by using constrained recognition to automatically recognize and select the closest available guess or by using user interface 102 to provide a user with a display of selectable mono-syllabic components to construct a phonetic pronunciation of a name, synthesizer 206 receives and synthesizes the selected mono-syllabic components to generate and/or construct a phonetic pronunciation of the name (Step 408). The constructed phonetic pronunciation of the name may be in the form of electronic data such as an audio file. In one configuration, the synthesizer 202 provides the phonetic pronunciation to user interface 102 for audio presentation and/or playback to a user via, for example, one or more speakers of user interface 102.

A user, in response to hearing the pronounced name may accept or reject the constructed phonetic pronunciation (Step 410). For example, the user interface 102 may receive a user input “yes” to accept the presented phonetic pronunciation of a name or receive a user input “no” to reject the presented phonetic pronunciation of a name. The user input may be provided via a user input device such as a touch screen, mouse, keypad, and/or audio input.

If the user accepts the phonetic pronunciation, then the user-driven pronunciation system such as system 100 and/or 300 stores the user selected phonetic pronunciation for a name in, for example, data store 106 and/or 312 for subsequent use and/or playback to the user (Step 412). If the user rejects the phonetic pronunciation associated with the name, the user-driven pronunciation system 100 and/or 300 returns to Step 406 of process 400 to determine the next available closest guess or to allow the user to select a new arrangement of mono-syllabic components for a name Thus, in certain implementations, Steps 406 through 410 may be performed iteratively until a user is satisfied with a particular phonetic pronunciation of a name.

Generally, the systems and methods herein enable user-driven name pronunciation. Various techniques allow for a user to say a name that can be recognized and synthesized into a more accurate and proper pronunciation of the name by an electronic device. The techniques also enable a device to provide a user with a list of ways that a name can be pronounced so that the user can select a more accurate pronunciation. Furthermore, the systems and methods herein provide a user interface that enables a user to select one or mapped mono-syllabic components associated with a name to construct a more accurate pronunciation of the name by an electronic device.

FIG. 8 is a diagram of a system 800 for determining phonetic pronunciations of a name. The system 800 includes a pronunciation guesser 802, phonetic mapper 804, and constrained recognizer 806. The pronunciation guesser 802 also includes multiple pronunciation guessers 808, 810, and 812. Each of the pronunciation guessers is associated with a particular language and/or locale. For example, guesser 808 may be associated with the French language and utilize a French phonetic alphabet to guess pronunciations. Guesser 810 may be associated with the German language and utilize a German phonetic alphabet to guess pronunciations. Guesser 812, for example, may be associated with the English language and utilize an English phonetic alphabet to guess pronunciations.

In certain implementations, the pronunciation guesser 802 includes pronunciation guesser 202 of FIG. 2. The constrained recognizer 806 may include the recognizer 204 of FIG. 2. Also, the phonetic mapper 804 may be included in any one or more of the components 202-210 of FIG. 2. Furthermore, any one of the functions and/or operations of the components 802-812 may be implemented by one or more processors such as, for example, processor 104 of FIG. 1.

In certain implementations, a user via interface 102 may speak and/or provide an audio representation (e.g., recording) of a name that is pronounced in a certain way. The interface 102 may receive a name and recording of how the user chooses to pronounce the name. The interface 102 may receive a text entry for the name which is passed through the one or more guessers 808, 810, and 812. The recording of how to pronounce the name may then be recognized from a constrained list of pronunciations guessed from the one or more guessers 808, 810, and 812 and/or locales (after phonetic mapping to a target locale). The system 800 may then recognize the pronunciation that best matches how the user said the name.

More particularly, the constrained recognizer 806 may select the best match and/or a match that is substantially close to the spoken and/or provided name. A constrained list of pronunciation guesses may be generated by multiple pronunciation guessers 808, 810, and 812. While FIG. 8 shows three guessers, the number of guessers may vary from one to any number of guessers that can be efficiently supported by the system 800.

In certain implementations, a name is passed through multiple guessers 808, 810, and 812 that support the character set of a particular language or locale (for example, an English name may not be represented well in a Japanese locale, but will be represented better in a French locale). The pronunciation guess from each pronunciation guesser 810 and 812 associated with a different language and/or locale is then mapped by mapper 804 to the phonetic alphabet of a target locale such as, for example, the phonetic alphabet associated with pronunciation guesser 808. This mapping algorithm and/or process is done by mapper 804 unit that maps the sound units and/or phonemes from the phonetic alphabet of each guesser 810 and 812 to the phonetic alphabet of the target guesser 808 and its associated phonetic alphabet. The mapper 804 may map various phonetic components such as, without limitation, sound units, phonemes, mono-syllabic components, syllabic components with types of stresses, portions of words, and the like. Constrained recognizer 806 may then perform a constrained recognition to select the best match from these over-generated pronunciations.

In an additional aspect, name pronunciations are used for recognition as well as speech synthesis by, for example, synthesizer 206. In the case of speech synthesis, the phonetic alphabet to be mapped to may be different from the recognition alphabet. For speech synthesis, the phonetic alphabet is the one supported by the speech synthesizer used to render the spoken pronunciation. In one configuration, the synthesizer 206 and/or any one of the other components of FIG. 2 guesses the syllable stress when synthesizing a name based on a speech synthesis dictionary. The syllable stress may be derived from a set of rules that are specific to a language and/or locale. For example, the name “Obama” includes sound units “o”, “bam”, and “a.” The first sound unit “o” may be stressed such that the name is pronounced “Ohh-bam-a.” Alternatively, the last unit of the name may be stressed such that the name is pronounced “O-bam-Ahh.” In certain configurations, the system 800 and/or 100 includes various sounds units that are stressed or not stressed. The various sound units may be presented to a user as alternative selectable components like, for example, the components illustrated in FIGS. 5-7. In some implementations, the system 800 may present various pronunciations to a user including pronunciations with stressed and unstressed sound units which a user may select.

In an further aspect, a processor such as processor 104 may constrain the number and/or list of guessers 808, 810, and/or 812 to pass a name through by using a language identification process and/or function that prunes and/or reduces the number of guessers 808, 810, and/or 812. The language identification process and/or function may rank and/or provide a score that estimates the languages and/or locales that best fit a name. The processor 104 can then prune and/or reduce the list of guessers to constrain the number of guessers. This may be advantageous where the system 800 and/or 100 has limited capabilities (e.g., processing power, memory, and other resources) to enable the system 800 and/or 100 to more rapidly and efficiently provide name pronunciations to a user.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of a process 900 for generating a phonetic pronunciation of a name. A system such as system 800 may include and/or be provided with a plurality of pronunciation guessers 808, 810, and/or 812 where each of the pronunciation guessers 808, 810, and/or 812 are associated with a particular phonetic alphabet of a language or locale (Step 902). A processor such as processor 104 determines a language or locale associated with a user (Step 904) and associates a first phonetic alphabet with the language or locale associated with the user (Step 906). The determination of language and/or locale may be via manufacturer input, service provider input, user input, detection of the geographic area associated with the location of the system 800 and/or 100, analysis of the types of names and/or other words input by a user, and the like.

Each of the pronunciation guessers 808, 810, and/or 812 receives a representation of the name (Step 908). The representation may be orthographic. Each of the plurality of pronunciation guessers 808, 810, and/or 812 guess a phonetic pronunciation of one or more components of the name (Step 910). Then, a phonetic mapper 804 maps the phonetic pronunciation of the one or more components of the name guessed by each of the plurality of pronunciation guessers 808, 810 and 812 to the first phonetic alphabet to generate to generate a list of guessed pronunciations (Step 912). In certain configurations, mapper 804 and/or processor 104 may receive a phonetic pronunciation that is transcribed by a linguist in a lexicon associated with the first phonetic alphabet and/or another phonetic alphabet, which may be included in the list of guessed pronunciations. A recognizer such as recognizer 806 may receive an audio pronunciation of the name (Step 914) and then select a combination of components from the list of guessed pronunciations that, when pronounced, substantially and/or best match the audio pronunciation of the name (Step 916).

Each of the one or more components of the name may include at least one of a sound unit, a phoneme, a mono-syllabic component, a mono-syllabic component with a particular type of stress, and portion of a word. The processor 102 may identify the language or locale associated with the user. The number of pronunciation guessers 808, 810, and/or 812 may be determined based on the language or locale associated with the user. The type of each of the plurality of pronunciation guessers 808, 810, and/or 812 may be determined based on the language or locale associated with the user. The type of pronunciation guesser may include the type of language or locale associated with the pronunciation guesser.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of another process 1000 for generating a phonetic pronunciation of a name based on user selection of the name's monosyllabic components. A system such as system 100 of FIG. 1 may associate a phonetic pronunciation with a name. The system 100 may include a user interface 102 arranged to receive the name (Step 1002). The system may also include a processor 104 arranged to map the name to a plurality of monosyllabic components that are combinable to construct the phonetic pronunciation of the name (Step 1004). The user interface 102 may also be arranged to receive a user input to select one or more of the plurality of monosyllabic components (Step 1006). Furthermore, the processor 104 may be arranged to combine the selected one or more of the plurality of monosyllabic components to construct the phonetic pronunciation of the name (Step 1008).

In one configuration, the user interface 102 is arranged to provide the phonetic pronunciation to the user. The user interface 102 may be arranged to receive a second user input to select or reject the phonetic pronunciation. The user interface 102 may also be arranged to display a first portion of the plurality of monosyllabic components to the user. The user interface 102 may further be arranged to display a second portion of the monosyllabic components in response to a user selection of one of the first portion of the plurality of monosyllabic components.

The processor 104 may be arranged to receive the name from a contact list of a contact application 208 and/or other application 210 associated with the user. The name may be in text format. The processor 104 may be arranged to query a data store 106 and 312 that includes one or more of the monosyllabic components associated with the name. The monosyllabic components may include components associated with one or more language and/or locales. The construction of the phonetic pronunciation of the name may include generating an audio file.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of a process 900 for determining usage information associated with the phonetic pronunciation of a name. A system for determining usage of phonetic pronunciations of a name such as system 300 of FIG. 3 may include a server 310 arranged to receive the name (Step 1102). The system 300 may include a data store 312 arranged to store one or more phonetic pronunciations associated with the name (Step 1104). The server 310 may be arranged to receive an indication of the one or more phonetic pronunciations associated with the name from one or more user devices 302, 304, and 306 (Step 1106) and determine usage data associated with the one or more phonetic pronunciations associated with the name (Step 1108).

The indication may include the one or more phonetic pronunciations. The indication may include a selection of the one or more phonetic pronunciations from the one or more user devices 302, 304, and 306. The usage data may include an amount of instances that the indication is received during a period of time. The server 310 may be arranged to provide at least one of the phonetic pronunciations associated with the name to a first user device 302 based on the usage data.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that the systems and methods involved in the present application may be embodied in a computer program product that includes a computer usable, non-transitory, and/or readable medium. For example, such a computer usable medium may consist of a read only memory device, such as a CD ROM disk or conventional ROM devices, or a random access memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette, or flash memory device having a computer readable program code stored thereon.

It is understood that the various features, elements, or processes of the foregoing figures and description are interchangeable or combinable to realize or practice the implementations describe herein. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that aspects of the application can be practiced by other than the described implementations, which are presented for purposes of illustration rather than of limitation, and the aspects are limited only by the claims which follow. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving a name; mapping the name to a plurality of monosyllabic components that are combinable to construct a phonetic pronunciation of the name; receiving a user input to select one or more of the plurality of monosyllabic components; and combining the selected one or more of the plurality of monosyllabic components to construct the phonetic pronunciation of the name. 